A Variety of Quilts

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, that placing more than one quilt on a backing can save on backing fabric and on quilting fees, as you don't need to leave the extra fabric for loading between each quilt, and the loading time is reduced. 

Colleen took this to heart and brought me 4 small quilts on one 108" long backing.

This first quilt was a row robin from Collen's guild, from years ago.  

Unquilted....

I had wondered what to do in the borders around the green bits...I wanted to highlight them as I really like that detail, and my friend Nancy at Crazy Creek Creations, suggested the leaves.   I angled the piano keys to match the angles in the green details in the border as well.

 SID (stitch in the ditch) around and on the adorable applique, and then a variety of fills behind to make the applique pop. 

I like the wise looking owl.

Next up are these two Broken Dishes quilts, of which one is the reverse of the other.  Both get made at the same time.  Colleen wanted these quilted the same, and chose a simple cross-hatch.  She and 3 of her friends made these together, kits bought at Paducah.   I think it's good to have partners in your insanity.

 The cutting board gives you a good idea of scale...these pieces aren't big at all.

 I wanted the quilting to show, and to add some texture and dimension, so after some careful thought I used wool batting.  Careful thought, because I thought, as reproduction fabrics that the batting should be something that might have been used in those times, and so the first thought was cotton, but then I realized (with a doh/headslap) moment that wool would be used in antique quilts too.

 You can very easily see in the photo below the benefits of putting two quilts on the same backing...there's only about 1/2" between the quilts, which saves about 6-8" of backing fabric.

And the 4th quilt is another well aged quilt...Colleen's guild did a fabric swap, so each of the triangles is a unique fabric.  She said this one started out really big, all laid out on the floor,  but wound up very small, by the time all the seam allowances were taken.  

 The border fabric has some floral/leafy patterning to it, so I chose a leafy border.  And I wanted the quilting in the interior to highlight the diamond shape, differentiate between lights and darks,  but to also be very simple.   So, SID and straight line quilting achieved that. 

 What a great variety of fabrics. 

No trouble finding 5 photos today.  Thanks for looking.  I had fun with your quilts Colleen.